At the last minute we were thrown on our own resources, as Chris Jepson, who was billed to lead this workshop, had an exciting work commitment he couldn’t avoid. Many thanks to those members who stepped in in the absence of most of the committee, to set up, provide refreshments and help organise the evening.

In the introduction to the evening, we noted that, as a photographic society rather than a camera club, we tended to concentrate on aesthetic aspects of image making within the wider historical and global context of photography as an art form, or as story telling. Our speakers often are professionals in a particular genre or field and what camera they use and certainly what settings etc are of secondary interest. However, for some members, the increasingly complex technology of our photographic equipment is a challenge to be met as we strive to improve our own work. This workshop was an attempt to address those issues and depended on the generosity of members to give of their own knowledge and understanding.

In the first half, we gathered in groups: users of Nikon, Canon, Olympus and others. Topics ranged from use of filters, back button focussing, long exposures, secret menus and hidden functions. There was no need for a structured evening: once you have a group of twenty or so people with cameras, lights, tripods and gizmos, the buzz is hard to interrupt. Eventually, refreshments were taken and conversations either continued, or advantage was taken of the various still life arrangements of flowers and peppers to try out different settings and effects.

We are hoping that everyone will post five of their images on our Flickr group before we next meet on May 2nd, as there was no time for a plenary discussion or a flipchart presentation of lessons learnt and future needs.( www.flickr.com/groups/pickofweek/ If you would like to join this group, as a member, just email clacps.programme@yahoo.co.uk )We would also be very grateful if all participants would help by adding their own feedback on this and our programme in general, in comments on this page. Many thanks to all who helped make it a successful evening.

Thanks for the write-up. It was a good evening. It is always useful to talk about cameras.
I would like to comment on the possibility of having the PDF manual of your camera printed and bound. It struck me as a good idea and I had mine done in 2015 by Doxdirect, who are apparently still around:
www.doxdirect.com
I'm sure there are lots of other companies doing this and I can't compare prices with the mysterious Jamie who was mentioned by others and is apparently a secret expert.

print-my-pdf.com is the one I used, Margaret. Good choice of sizes/binding and prompt service

Reply

Margaret Marks

25/4/2017 10:58:00 am

Thanks, Natalie. I've now had an email from Jean about her site - it's a Jeff Seymour who has sites for all sorts of mobile phone, tablet and camera manuals:
'Find the printed manual for your camera at www.Camera-Manual.com'
The only risk here is that you pick the wrong manual or wrong edition. But maybe these should be put in the list of resources.

Reply

Stephen

2/5/2017 01:49:33 am

It was a good evening where I learnt more about my camera and therefore how to get better shots, can we do it again please!